The present invention relates to an optical character recognition system and method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an OCR-type system which provides recognition of video character data representing text on a document having proportional spacing and/or fixed pitch formats, as well as recognition of text having accented characters.
OCR-type systems have long been known in the art in conjunction with sophisticated word processing systems implemented in the business environment, as well as a personal user environment, Many such systems operate with a proportional spacing format, which provides for proportional spacing for each line of text.
This proportional spacing is a desirable feature in many such word processing systems such as in preparation of legal briefs and memoranda, marketing projections and the like.
One problem with prior art OCR-type systems is that, in general, there is no capability of distinguishing between proportional spacing formats and fixed pitch formats, such as may be used with older type equipment. However, there are many applications where it would be desirable to have a recognition capability between proportional spaced formats and fixed pitch formats. Prior art systems have, in general, not been able to provide a recognition technique so that either type of format can be utilized in a word processing system.
In addition, OCR scanning systems have not in general been able to provide for accurate recognition of accented characters, such as appear in many Western European languages. As the word processing capability is expanded to include Western European text, a serious limitation is the deficiency of prior art systems of not being able to recognize accented characters.